The computer entertainment industry annually publishes numerous games and simulations for the amusement of the general public. Most conventional computer games can be classified as either cinematic or contextual. Cinematic games dynamically present a series of cartoon or video images in a substantively predetermined order such that the game player is led through an essentially prescripted game course. Contextual games allow the player to more significantly alter the course of a game session in response to decisions made by the player and communicated to the game system via user input devices. Contextual games typically allow the game player to act within a simulated three dimensional space. A contextual game software program therefore usually requires the transmission of three dimensional positional information as well as commands that indicate a user-selected direction of travel, as defined within the simulated three dimensional game space, from the user input device and to a game system host computer.
The development of ergonomic user input devices is clearly an important aspect of computer simulation evolution. The useability of buttons, triggers, joysticks, optical guns, thumbpads and other input devices significantly affect the degree to which a player may enjoy a particular game system. And the architecture of the player input device and its method of integration into a game system can appreciably contribute to the cost of manufacturing the game system.
Many computer game systems using an optical gun need to reliably and accurately determine at what area of the video screen the optical gun is pointed when the trigger is depressed by the game player. Certain conventional art games generate a screen flash to address this requirement. In a screen flash, the majority of the pixels of the video screen are de-energized while each or most of the pixels are alternately and briefly illuminated in a predetermined sequence. This screen flash method requires a controller to compare the timing of the detection of pixel illumination by the optical gun, coincident with the depression of the trigger, with the illumination sequence data, whereby the controller calculates the location of the screen at which the optical gun was pointed shortly after the trigger was fired. In another application of screen flash, the computer game system may generate a screen flash to determine where the optical gun is pointed at a given moment, irrespective of trigger firing. This may occur when a game scenario allows for a simulation of game features in a 360 degree circumference around the position of the game player in the game space, and the pointing of the gun may be used to control what portion of the 360 degree circumference will be displayed on the video screen, so that a player might simulate physically turning around within a setting of a game scene. Conventional applications of the screen flash method present significant drawbacks, to include (1) a flashing of the screen at rates slow enough to be perceived as an annoyance by the game player, and (2) illumination of the pixels at a low power whereby less power whereby less expensive optical guns may intermittently fail to detect pixel illuminations during the screen flash.
The development and inclusion of input device communication formatting standards in personal computer operating systems, such as the human interface device, or HID, standard substantively incorporated into MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 operating system, MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98 operating system, APPLE OS 8.0 operating system and LINUX operating system offer a potential unrealized by the prior art to streamline player input device designs, reduce game system hardware costs and economically provide higher quality computer games to arcade operators and game players.
An interpretive software module of the host computer system software contains and implements a library of pre-defined peripheral device archetypes, data structure building rules and signal handling protocols. The data structure building rules direct the construction of peripheral device-specific data structures. The construction of each peripheral device-specific data structure is determined by an interpretation of the system software of a self-descriptive formatted data packet, such as a HID report descriptor, that describes a particular peripheral device. The formatted self-descriptive data packet relates the personality or archetype of the originating peripheral device to a particular archetype model structure contained in the interpretive software module, and typically further describes individual design elements, and the nature and relatedness of the elements, of the peripheral device within the context of the referenced archetype model. The interpretive software module may then employ the data structure building rules to construct a device-specific data structure upon the bases of the pre-defined form of the designated archetype and the specific description, if applicable, of the individual design elements of the selected peripheral device. More particularly, the personal computer software operating systems mentioned above, i.e. the LINUX operating system, MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 operating system, WINDOWS 98 operating system and APPLE OS 8.0 operating system, substantively incorporate and/or conform to individual principles, concepts and/or specifications found in the Human Interface Device standard, as described in "The Device Class Definition for Human Interface Devices, Firmware Specification", Version 1.0--Final, USB Implementers Forum, 1997. The Human Interface Devices, or HID, standard teaches that certain host computers and personal computers may be programmed to accept and/or transmit formatted self-descriptive information packets, or HID report descriptors, and peripheral state data, or HID reports, to and/or from HID compliant peripheral input, output and bidirectional devices. The use of predetermined formats for communication and control between the host computer and the peripheral devices is supports the vigorous commercial and consumer implementation of plug-and-play computer system modules, whereby a computer user may purchase a HID device with a high degree of confidence that the newly acquired HID device will be easily integrated into his or her computing system.
There is, therefore, a long felt need to both improve the ergonomic quality of input devices of computer game systems and to allow the cost-effective application of personal computer models in combination with input devices that provide user generated commands and direction to either a cinematic type or contextual style computer game.